Into the Fire

Perhaps I sound a bit morose lately. Not meaning to. A lot of inspiration for death talk. Which leads to life talk. Because if you can read this, you’re still breathing.

My friend Kirk who I met at a writing conference last May has four children. His youngest, who is still at the toddler age, already possesses a donor liver. Last week this child was back at Children’s Hospital with potentially scary and worse consequences, more testing, a CT scan, and many prayers accompanying her visit. The bravery of the parents, the siblings, and this little child would humble us all. Part of the news was good. Perhaps Kirk will stop by and fill us in on the rest of the results.

A few of you diehard baseball fans might know that The Voice for the Seattle Mariners passed away in his home at the age of 75 from a heart attack. One moment Dave Niehaus was fine, the next he was gone. People who knew him personally, of course family, but also all kinds of professionals in baseball and out, long-suffering Mariner fans, spoke of him with wonderful stories of his kindness, his huge appreciation for his job, his love for baseball and baseball players, his mentorship in the role of media representative, always communicating great respect.

A friend’s dad left his family recently after an excruciating battle with lung cancer. He died waiting to see Jesus after much of his life was spent without Him. He was a father and grandfather, a friend to many, and people here will miss him for who he was to them.

If you read my blog post regarding Sandi Rog’s new discovery of cancer in her body, you know how dreadful the C-word sounds. Death comes instantly to our minds. Healing a very distant second and not guaranteed. Amidst the joy of the release of her new novel The Master’s Wall, she faces prospects none of us want to engage. Wife, mother, friend, Sandi is a cherished lady. An asset to God’s kingdom.  

Christians know dead people pass on to the next and final place. They don’t generally welcome the process of dying unless the suffering forces them to want it hurried along. Dying is not the anticipated goal, but the eternal prospects of being in God’s holy heaven sounds absolutely . . . well, divine. The pictures the Spirit painted with His words in Revelation have inspired the imaginations and intense studies of many people of faith. Those of us who love Jesus desire to go to be with Him. Especially when the crises of this life nearly overwhelm us—the betrayals, the prejudices, the diseases, the corruption. Really it’s the sin. Ours, theirs, everyone’s. We want to rid the world of it, but at a more personal level, we wish our own would somehow disappear. That we could be the people we want to be instead of always finding a way to stumble and mess up—the people God intended us to be at creation, the people He designed us to be. Once flawless, now terribly flawed.

This existence remains temporary. Not just for Christians but for everyone. People choose to believe whatever they want about life, death, and the afterlife. Without biblical explanations the ideas range from a dead stop to the occupation of another kind of life in the next. When it all comes due, only the truth matters.

Who did we touch, affect, and to whom do we matter? Who will miss us, what we’ve done? Who will smile and tear up at the memory of who we were?

And still most important: who will welcome us after our breath on earth is done?

God, we choose you. In the Name of Jesus, may we honor you in all we do. Amen.